Working Group 1

Although the discussion of theoretical approaches is of general importance for all participants in the Action, the fundamental importance of evaluating and creating innovative specific approaches to the reconstruction of cultural change and to the evaluation of the role played and the strategies used by the new communities of interpretation requires specific attention, consideration and effort. Indeed, preliminary discussions have made clear the difficulties of defining a theoretical and terminological set of ideas in the process of analysing these new cultural manifestations, which are characterised by their hybridity, fluidity and multiformity (for an overview of methodological approaches, see Burke 2009). A specific and innovative feature of the activities of the WG will be to develop new and better-calibrated instruments of investigation of these processes of cultural exchange (Muchembled 2007) in a stronger and richer European and pan-European perspective, taking into account highly specific religious, social and cultural dynamics at the same time as accommodating general trends and developments.